In traditional wireless telecommunications systems, transmission equipment in a base station transmits signals throughout a geographical region known as a cell. As technology has evolved, more advanced network access equipment has been introduced that can provide services that were not possible previously. This advanced network access equipment might include, for example, an enhanced node-B (eNB) rather than a base station or other systems and devices that are more highly evolved than the equivalent equipment in a traditional wireless telecommunications system. Such advanced or next generation equipment is typically referred to as long-term evolution (LTE) equipment. For LTE equipment, the region in which a wireless device can gain access to a telecommunications network might be referred to by a name other than “cell”, such as “hot spot”. As used herein, the term “cell” will be used to refer to any region in which a wireless device can gain access to a telecommunications network, regardless of whether the wireless device is a traditional cellular device, an LTE device, or some other device.
Devices that might be used by users in a telecommunications network can include both mobile terminals, such as mobile telephones, personal digital assistants, handheld computers, portable computers, laptop computers, tablet computers and similar devices, and fixed terminals such as residential gateways, televisions, set-top boxes and the like. Such devices will be referred to herein as user equipment or UE.
Services that might be provided by LTE-based equipment can include broadcasts or multicasts of television programs, streaming video, streaming audio, and other multimedia content. Such services are commonly referred to as multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS). An MBMS might be transmitted throughout a single cell or throughout several contiguous or overlapping cells. The MBMS may be communicated from an eNB to a UE using point-to-point (PTP) communication or point-to-multipoint (PTM) communication.
In wireless communication systems, transmission from the network access equipment (e.g., eNB) to the UE is referred to as a downlink transmission. Communication from the UE to the network access equipment is referred to as an uplink transmission. Wireless communication systems generally require maintenance of timing synchronization to allow for continued communications. Maintaining uplink synchronization can be problematic, wasting throughput and/or decreasing battery life of an UE given that a UE may not always have data to transmit.